Irish/The Article

Lessons

Unit One: 1 2 3 4

Unit Two: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Unit Three: Lesson Index

Language Reference

Spelling and Pronunciation - Grammar

Wikiversity

More Irish language resources can be found at
Wikiversity's Department of Irish Studies

The Article

English has a definite article ("the") and an indefinite article ("a" or "an").

Irish has only a definite article. In situations where "a" or "an" would be used in English, the noun is used with no article.

The definite article has two forms: an and na.

• an is used in front of singular nouns
• na is used in front of plural nouns (and feminine nouns in the genitive case).

Grammatical Changes

The singular definite article "an" may change the noun it is applied to, depending on the first letter and gender of the noun:

	Consonant (b c f g m p)	Consonant (d n t l r)	Consonant (s but not sc, sm, sp or st)	Vowel
Masculine	(no change)	(no change)	(no change)	t-/t
Feminine	séimhiú	(no change)	t	(no change)

The plural definite article "na" changes the noun based only on its first letter:

Consonant	Vowel
(no change)	"h" prefix